the part, ready for his second chance is vito fossella, the drunk driving former congressman with staten island's previous entry for most salacious political ending. mr. fossella has been saying that republicans nosing around about whether or not he would be so the congressman who once threatened to throw a reporter off a balcony and break him like a little boy is now facing 20 federal felony counts, has a willing replacement in the guy who would not call a cab and did not hold his count of families to one. god bless you, staten island, for whatever you've done wrong in your life. you never did anything to deserve congressional representation like this. i'm sorry. that does it for us tonight. now it's time for "the last word." thanks for being with us. today the l.a. clippers lost some of their sponsors. tomorrow they might be headed toward losing their owner. >> shocking racial comments allegedly by an nba owner shake the entire league. >> the racist comments allegedly

made. >> racist remarks allegedly caught on tape. >> by los angeles clippers owner donald sterling. >> people call you and tell you that i have black people on my instagram, and it bothers you? >> yeah, it bothers me a lot. >> those comments are not surprising. >> this is nothing new. >> this has been a pattern. >> this is someone whose racism has been abided by the nba for decades. >> in 2009 sterling settled a housing discrimination suit. >> the largest settlement to the justice department. >> at issue -- allegations he discriminated against hispanic and african-american renters. >> who's going to want to play for this guy? >> what player exactly would want to play for this owner? >> during yesterday's playoff game clippers players staged a silent protest, dumping their warm-up uniforms on center court. now everyone from hall of famers to the president is weighing in on this. the power, if you will-s in the hands of adam silver. the nba has announced a news conference tomorrow on its investigation. >> donald sterling has become bad for business. >> the racist comments allegedly made.

>> racist remarks allegedly caught on tape. >> what many are calling a defining moment for the nba. i'm ari melber in for lawrence o'donnell. we begin tonight in los angeles, a city that has been rocked by a scandal that stretched from racist comments allegedly made by the l.a. clippers owner on a private conversation to a very public rebuke from his players, his colleagues in the league, and halfway around the world from the president himself. just tonight miami heat players wore their jerseys inside out during warm-ups in solidarity with those clipper players. in 24 hours the l.a. clippers face off of course against the golden state warriors in game 5 of the playoffs. but first, tomorrow afternoon nba commissioner adam silver will announce the results of the nba's initial investigation into those remarks allegedly made by clippers owner donald sterling. tmz sports released a recording allegedly revealing that sterling was telling his then girlfriend she shouldn't post pictures of herself socializing with black people including

magic johnson on her instagram account. stiviano uses that photo sharing website and has about 150,000 followers there. we're going to play the call audio in a moment, but first, here is the latest from magic johnson, tonight outlining what he thinks should happen to sterling. >> he has to lose the team hopefully. yeah, they have to play in the playoffs. if you boycott, that's the wrong thing because you still can achieve what you want. now, the boycott, if nothing happens, then you can boycott in the off-season and not just the clippers. the whole league has to. because if he's not thrown out, you've got to do something. >> we can also report tonight that the number of companies suspending their clippers sponsorships has grown to eight. and five have ended their sponsorships altogether. the l.a. chapter, meanwhile, of the naacp, which was actually planning to honor sterling next month, said this today. >> there is a personal, economic, and social price that mr. sterling must pay.

>> as we've said before, nbc news has not confirmed the authenticity of these recordings first posted by tmz sports and the sports website deadspin. now, here is part of the audio of that alleged discussion between donald sterling and v. stiviano. sterling has not denied it's him up to this point. the statement from the clippers' president says that there's an emphatic view here that what's on the tape is not consistent with his record. >> i'm living in a culture, and i have to live within the culture. so that's the way it is. >> people call you and tell you that i have black people on my instagram, and it bothers you. >> yeah, it bothers me a lot. if you want to broadcast that you're associating with black people. do you have to? >> you associate with black people. >> i'm not you, and you're not me. you're supposed to be a delicate white or delicate latina girl. how about your whole life every day you could do whatever you want?

you could sleep with them, you could bring them in, you could do whatever you want. the little i ask you is not to promote it on that and not to bring them to my games. >> there's no negativity. i love everybody. i'm just saying in your lousy [ bleep ] instagram you don't have to have yourself with -- walking with black people. you don't have to. if you want to, do it. i think the fact that you admire him, i've known him well, and he should be admired. and i'm just saying that it's too bad you can't admire him privately and during your entire [ bleep ] life, your whole life admire him. bring him here, feed him, [ bleep ] him, i don't care. you can do anything. but don't put him on an instagram for the world to have to see so they have to call me. and don't bring him into my games. okay? >> deadspin also posted an extended version of the alleged conversation. >> do you know that you have a whole team that's black that plays for you? >> you just -- do i know? i support them and give them

food. and clothes. and cars. and houses. who gives it to them? does someone else give it to them? do i know that i have. who makes the game? do i make the game, or do they make the game? is there 30 owners that created the league? >> while many owners, players, and coaches around the league have condemned sterling, tonight "usa today" reports the clippers head coach doc rivers is refusing to speak with sterling after the owner called him. rivers also publicly spoke out tonight saying, "i would like to reiterate how disappointed i am in the comments attributed to donald sterling and i can't even begin to tell you how upset i am and our players are. today i had a meeting with the members of our organization. when you're around all these people, you realize they're just as upset and embarrassed by the situation and it does not reflect who they really are. this is a very emotional subject. this is personal. my belief is that the longer we keep winning, the more we talk about this.

i believe that is good. if we want to make a statement, i believe that is how we have to do it. joining me now is "washington post" columnist jonathan capehart and khary lazarre-white, co-founder and co-effective director of the brotherhood sisterhood soul. welcome to you both. your thoughts on everything we are seeing today. >> i think the attention on this issue is warranted. i think it's very important that we're discussing it. but i think there's also a larger conversation about why it is that we're discussing it now. this man has a long track record of saying racist and vile things, creating a work environment that is not conducive to black people being comfortable in that work environment and actually settled with the department of justice for nearly $3 million because of his housing violations, refusing to allow black and latin people to live in his housing. so i think there's a question as well for the board of governors, for the former commissioner david stern, why was this man not brought to task earlier? why was he not penalize when this is a league that has shown an interest and a focus in penalizing players for using derogatory comments online, for

dressing inappropriately, for fighting, and then you have an owner who has this type of track record and it takes the release of this statement to bring about this conversation? so i think it also raises that question, why now are we talking about it, why has this not been dealt with previously. >> i think you're speaking of something very profound there, which is people often talk about a teachable moment. lord knows a lot of people around the country, really around the world are looking at this. and yet you're speaking to the question of is this a teachable moment or is this another entertainment moment and is it the nature of the drama here that's drawn attention that should have been here earlier? kareem abdul-jabbar has a new article out raising some of those same points. let me read this. and jonathan capehart, i'd like to get your thoughts on it. he writes, "what bothers me about this whole donald sterling affair isn't just his racism. i'm bothered that everyone acts as if it's a huge surprise. he was discriminating against black and hispanic families for years, preventing them from getting housing. it was public record. we did nothing. suddenly he says he doesn't want his girlfriend posing with magic johnson on instagram and we bring out the torches and rope.

shouldn't we have all called for his resignation back then? if we're all going to be outraged, let's be more outraged that we weren't more outraged when his racism was first evident." jonathan. >> it's a great point. and sure, hindsight is people should have gotten up in arms during the lawsuits and tried to call for mr. sterling's -- you can't remove him. he's the owner of the team. but at least public rebuke. but what's happening now i find at once sickening and fantastic. sickening in that we have to listen to these recordings of this man saying horrible and derogatory things about african-americans, about people who are on his team, you know, by extension. but it's fantastic in that the near universal and instantaneous condemnation that has fallen on mr. sterling is fantastic to see.

that so many times we go through these big racial moments, these teachable moments, and they get bogged down in a nuanced argument where everyone is offended, no one is satisfied by the conversation. here we have gone through five days now, maybe even six if you include in cliven bundy and what we were talking about last week and what the nevada illegal rancher was saying, and then we go right into the weekend talking about donald sterling and what he is allegedly caught on tape saying. the universal condemnation that has fallen on both these men is something that really speaks to just how bold the racism is but also how we don't have to argue with people that these two people should be universally condemned. everyone gets that. they know that. so i'm taking this as a positive sign of just how far our conversation has moved.

>> yeah, i mean, i agree with jonathan on that point, that it's very important that the condemnation has been so broad. his own daughter has condemned him. his son-in-law has condemned him. and i think that is extremely important. but i think it still behooves us to look at this issue of why we have such a long track record of somebody who has made -- if he is in the end forced to sell his team, the estimate is that he will raise almost $800 million in profit from what he bought his team from. he has been allowed to earn such a large amount of income, yet he's been allowed to run his team in a vile way that has been disrespectful of his ownership, of his players of, of fans, et cetera. so i think we do need sound from adam silver tomorrow as the new commissioner why this has been allowed to proceed for so long, why the board of governors, the owners, and i don't think collectively the owners of the league have taken him on as broadly as we would like to see. i think it's happened from players. i think it's happened from coaches. obviously kareem abdul-jabbar and magic. but i think broadly the owners need to come out and to shun him as a fellow owner, to say this has no place in our league, this

is not something we stand for, this is not what the nba's a about. and i don't think that type of condemnation has occurred yet and i would look for that to come from both the owners universally and the commissioner tomorrow. >> and if they don't do that tomorrow going into the next game, if they don't do that in a way that is firm and that is economically accountable, then what? >> i think that as magic said, it is absolutely essential that the players come together to protest this. people have compared it to muhammad ali. nobody is questioning somebody going to jail. nobody's talking about taking away people's livelihood. nobody's saying that somebody's going to be forced to go to a war. this is not a comparison to muhammad ali. what we are saying is players as men, as multimillionaires, as very prominent citizens in america, need to stand up collectively and quite honestly do more than turn their shirts inside out but to speak out very publicly, collectively as a body, and if need be refuse to play. i think it's absolutely essential. >> jonathan, go ahead. >> i just think -- i'm really concerned about people pushing the players to do something that they may not be able to do contractually.

i haven't looked at the nba contract, and i don't know what contract obligations these players are under. but i did -- i do think the sort of silent protest that they engaged in yesterday and what ari, you showed in the tape leading into this segment is the dignified and proper response for right now. and the league is in the middle of playoffs. these are folks who, you know, they've got a job to do. they're working but they're also under contract. and so until someone from the nba or until someone who actually covers sports, unlike i do, can tell me what recourse do the players have, can they actually refuse to play and not have it boomerang on them and become a punishment on them for protesting something that the owner of the team did and who should be held accountable for. >> i think that's intricate and involved. i also think we know the history of the civil rights struggle in this country often involves

boycotts and some of the difficult economic questions there, including the wider impacts on the communities and the people employed here. i think the question for the rest of us in media and obviously in the culture is what do we want to do about this long-term? because we are the fans. we are the enablers as well. that's where the conversation goes beyond the easy. look at this obviously terrible disgusting racist phone call that involves celebrities and magic johnson and this woman's photos. what do we as a society want to do about this and not just go after one person when there's a collective history and as you mentioned a history of housing discrimination that even the d.o.j. got involved with this very individual. thank you both for walking us through some of this. jonathan capehart and khary lazarre-white. thank you very much. coming up we're going to look at the politics of predicting some of these deadly storms and how spending cuts may make it harder and how a new bill may save some lives here. and sister simone campbell joins me to discuss the pope's message on income inequality which spread like wildfire on twitter today. some better social media news. and later lucia mcgrath returns

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it's a wedge. it's a big wedge. >> give me the motion. which way is it moving? >> coming up, you're going to see what happens as that tornado moves into mississippi and what happened when it touched down. the latest on the tornadoes. plus, why making sure the government's able to do its job can save lives. that's next. ♪

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tornadoes in mississippi and alabama caused serious damage and two more deaths today as the central and southern states were hit for a second time by a storm system which has already killed 16 people. >> it's moving to the right. big wedge. okay. yeah. let's go. >> we've got to go right now. >> keep going.

>> last night a group of deadly tornadoes hammered seven states including oklahoma, iowa, and arkansas. 14 people were killed in arkansas alone where one twister left eye a 100-mile-long path of destruction through an area northwest of little rock. in livonia one of the hardest-hit towns one resident said he was lucky to take cover right before the twister struck. >> luckily we had enough warning that we could get down in our heidi hole. we were sitting down there and it went right over the top of us. came out and total destruction. >> it's fair to say the family made it because of that speedy warning, a warning that came from the national weather service, a federally funded division of the commerce department. and while tonight all eyes are rightfully focused on the emergency response, there are some policy lessons here too. just a few weeks ago in fact the u.s. house passed a bipartisan bill ton only support the national weather service but specifically to direct 350 million toward improving the technology that our government uses to predict extreme weather events. jim bridenstein, a republican

from oklahoma said he introduced the bill in response to the tornado that killed 24 people in his district last year. you look at the wreckage and results today, and many climate experts are saying this is a key time to move on that very bill, which would help the u.s. prediction technology catch up with better models used today nm countries in europe. despite the house's bipartisan and little-noticed breakthrough here, the senate has yet to act on the measure. joining me now is kate sheppard, the environment and energy editor at the huffington post. welcome. how are you? >> i'm well. how are you, ari? >> i'm good. when we look at these events, first we obviously cover the destruction. we have the regrettable loss of life. but as we were researching this today, it was striking to look at this issue of the prediction technology. tell us about that. >> well, over the years prediction technology has gotten a lot better. now scientists at the weather service can predict about 75% of the storms before they happen. and they get an average of 13 minutes' warning. that's much better than it was

even back in the 1980s when they only predicted about 25% of them and they only got about five minutes' warning. so it's gotten much better. but it could still get a lot better. as you mentioned, other countries have better satellite programs than we do and better monitoring systems. there's still a lot that can be done to improve those systems going forward. >> let me play a little more sound from congressman bridenstein on the issue during the debate. take a listen. >> the moore tornado killed 24 oklahomans, injured 377, and resulted in an estimated $2 billion worth of damage. a warning was issued only 15 minutes before the tornado touched down. just 15 minutes. in fact, 15 minutes is the standard in america. mr. speaker, america can do better than 15 minutes. >> i've got to tell you, i agree with that. and if that's sort of a version of what in politics we call american exceptionalism where you get everyone pumped up about the idea that we should at least do as well as any country. and you look at this story today and you think this technology is

available, it is relatively low cost by the standards of the federal budget and the weather forecasting improvement act here would do this and it's on the one hand boring when you look at weather -- you know, weather legislation. i'm not surprised the senate hasn't snapped it up yet. and then on the other hand supremely important to potentially saving more lives. >> it is really important and it will save lives. i think that the senate needs to act on this bill and i think it will. the senate has in the past supported more funding for these programs at noaa. it's really a question of how to get that money to them as soon as possible, to improve the systems as quickly as possible. but overt years we've cut funding to programs like this. you look at the sequester that was indiscriminate cuts to agency. it didn't really care about tornado prediction. it cult budget for things like that as well. >> this initially got weighed down by some climate change fights and then those were resolved.

tell me about that. >> this bill initially when it was crafted would have taken money away from climate change research and put it into this weather program and a lost people balked and said it's really not they're to say those are two separate things. our understanding of climate and weather are all really interrelated and it doesn't make any sense to take funding away from climate and put it into weather. they resolved that in the end. the bill does not take anything away from climate funding but just puts more money into research. that was a positive change it was good it passed the house that way. >> right. and i thought that was a small example of the good stuff on climate science not getting shut out even though there's usually bad news on that politically, obviously bad news when our hearts go out to this many people who've been hurt and affected today. i would also be remiss, though, kate, if i didn't ask are those new red glasses? >> they are new. >> okay. i like them. i like them and they're noticeable. kate sheppard of the huffington post, thank you for joining us tonight.

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check your speed. see how fast your internet can be. switch now and add voice and tv for $34.90. comcast business built for business. in the spotlight tonight, some republicans are caught between a rock and a hard place. specifically, between the pope's teachings and rush limbaugh's orders. you may remember that pope francis issued an influential papal exhortion about economic inequality late last year. he urged people to reject the idolatry of money and an economy of exclusion.

and that began an unusual debate about ethics in & market capitalism that continues this week and set off a few republicans who don't want anyone to challenge the, quote, magic of trickle-down economics. >> this pope makes it very clear he doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to capitalism. this is an unfettered anti-capitalist dictate from pope francis that's going way beyond matters that are ethical. this -- this is a -- almost a statement about who should control financial markets. trickle-down is the magic. and yet here's pope francis. trickle-down policies have not been proven to work. and they reflect a naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power. what the pope has written about this is really befuddling

because he's totally wrong. i mean, dramatically, embarrassingly, puzzlingly wrong. but the pope here has now gone beyond catholicism here, and this is pure political. this is just pure marxism. coming out of the mouth of the pope. >> it's not just pure marxism on talk radio, either. the house republicans' top man on the budget, paul ryan, who does campaign as a practicing catholic, tried to put the pope's conversation in a more positive light. >> bring the poor in, create upward mobility, and free enterprise that gives opportunity to everybody, no matter who they are and where they are in life and in america. that's what we're for. he's invited this debate, and i think it's a fantastic conversation. >> you don't think he'd endorse your budget, do you? >> of course not. i don't -- he's the pope. popes don't endorse budgets. popes say let's have a conversation about how to fix the broken status quo, how to bring the poor in, how to not have a welfare state and how to produce upward mobility. >> that conversation continued

today as pope francis released a statement that he certainly knew would strike a chord out there. "inequality is the root of social evil." the pope shared that thought on twitter, enabling his followers to amplify the message, which they did. the missive was shared and favored over 20,000 times today. and the pope's increasing economic focus is also drawing coverage in the financial press. bloomberg news here reporting pope says inequality root of evil in post--canonization tweet. and the economics website business insider noted "the pope's thoughts on inequality couldn't be any more clear." what's also clear is the pope is arguably the most visible public figure in the world and he's not backing down from making this progressive economic argument or from making it on moral grounds. joining me now is sister simone campbell the executive director of network the national catholic lobby and author of the book "a nun on the bus." and josh barrow from the "new york times" and an msnbc contributor. welcome to you both. sister simone, your thoughts today. >> well, i was really excited to see the pope pick up this key

aspect of his exhortation from november because really it is inequality that is driving us apart. it is separating who do have wealth from those who don't, but what it's really doing is undermining our democracy and undermining our society. so i was glad he picked up that phrase and i was also glad it got so much attention. >> you mentioned the exhortation and some remember that, and that goes to what a modern pope he is. twitter can be used for photos. it can be used for nothing and piffle or it can be used to revisit and broaden out nor elaborate text. let's read from the exhortation which was entitled "no to the idolatry of money." where he wrote "while the

earnings of a monitor are growing exponentially so too is the gap separating the prosperity of a few. this imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. consequently they reject the right of states charged with vigilance for the common good to exercise any form of control. a new tyranny is thus born." josh, there's a lot going on in there. part of it i think reflects his status and world view and experience from being from, you know, a different type of country and an economy as many people feel in the developing world that they don't even have any real meaningful control over their economic conditions with when they're so dependent on the global economy. >> right. no, i think that's right. and i think with changing economic times the pope has been changing the focus of what the papacy is discussing publicly. i thought the exhortation was a lot better than the tweet today, which if you take literally is clearly incorrect. we do have too much inequality and rising inequality is a problem. any sort of economy that produces broadly shared prosperity is going to have some degree of inequality. so i assume the pope didn't literally mean that we should have no inequality whatsoever. but i think what you see also in argentina, where the pope is from, we see that inequality is a social problem but it is not the only social problem. argentina's had a lot of

economic problems, many of which have to do with problems with the rule of law that make it unclear who is going to own what property in the future and discourages investment, discourages productivity growth. there are a number of things we need in an economy that works for everybody. one of those things is an equal distribution of income but there are a right of things we need in the mixed economy to make capitalism work for everybody. it's not that we need to reject capitalism. >> and i think that's the experience in our nation as well, that we see the control of many of the court decisions seems to be a high preference for those who have wealth. we see the banks that are too big to fail, which preference those who control at the top as opposed to those who -- those small investors.

we see over and over again the shift of money to the top. this is not just an argentinean experience. this is a u.s. experience. and this u.s. story needs to be dealt with in these moral terms. >> you say moral terms, sister simone, and that's what struck me and why we played some of rush limbaugh and paul ryan. there's an empirical economics debate here about what works, and then there's also a values debate over what role our ethics should play in how we limit or have in the efficiencies in the marketplace. sister, do you think the pope here is able to actually weigh in on both effectively? >> i think he's coming at it mostly from the moral perspective, but it's -- well, i'm a lawyer, and we would say it's shocking to the conscience of the court. and this is shocking to the conscience of the court of public opinion, that 95% of the recovery in our economy has gone to the top 1% and that people -- 90% of our people have flat wages. this is wrong. i met a woman who works for minimum wage full-time but because she lives in a high-rent area -- i mean, in the d.c. area she has to live in a homeless shelter, she told me, because she isn't making enough money to pay rent. i mean, in the richest nation on

earth our people working full-time can't pay rent? this is wrong. >> and let me just read a little more of the exhortation on this point. the pope writes, "some people continue to defend trickle-down theories, which assume that economic growth encouraged by a free market will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. this opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expressed as a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the prevailing economic system." >> yeah. no, i think that's right. and i think different economic times call for different economic policies, some of which need to aim at the broad middle class and the poor. right now the reason that 95% of income gains since the end of the recession have gone to the top 1% is that there's been essentially no income gain for the bottom 99%. and if we had fiscal and monetary policies that promoted full employment, employers would have to pay higher wages in order to employ people. so there would be a way to adjust the market economy to improve those outcomes.

on the other hand, there are some policies we need that do encourage the creation of capital, that encourage people to invest in businesses, and in some sense those are benefits that trickle down. so there are actions that need to be taken both at the top and the middle at the bottom of the economy. it's a holistic approach rather than saying just one or the other. >> we're out of time. sister simone, you're shaking your head. just briefly. >> briefly, i think that we have had policies that preference the top. it's about time that we focus on those who are the hard workers, who create the wealth for those at the top. they need to participate. that's what we need. >> sister simone campbell and josh barro, thank you very much both for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you. coming up, congressman don wild and what's next for the two in trouble. and later, what the nra had to say to lucia mcbath, the mother of jordan davis -- and what lucia mcbath had to say to the nra. that's ahead. [ male announcer ] ortho crime files.

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>> because you're surrounded by a world where mad men are famous and good ones forgotten. doors are locked, and streets have gone silent. >> where filthy crimes go unpunished and killers and con artists prey upon anyone who still follows the rules. >> it's time to believe in the good guys again. >> we are the 5 million men and women of the national rifle association. join us. >> lucia mcbath, the mother of jordan davis, was also at the convention hoping to find some nra members willing to have an honest conversation about our gun laws in this country. did she succeed? well, she'll join us coming up. where villages floated on water and castles were houses dragons lurked

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anything that's off topic. this is only about the -- >> what about -- all right. thank you. congressman michael grimm does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances. >> that was republican congressman michael grimm getting aggressive with new york 1 reporter michael scotto earlier this year. today it was more clear why those questions about the federal investigation were so hot for grimm. the former fbi agent turned congressman had to turn himself over to fbi agents. he faces a new 20-count indictment. charges against grimm are related to a health food restaurant he owned before getting elected to congress and included hiring undocumented workers and filing false tax

returns. grimm pled not guilty and was released on a $400,000 bond. he struck back at prosecutors when leaving court today. >> this political witch hunt was designed to do a couple of things but first and foremost assassinate my character and remove me from office. i know i'm a moral man, a man of integrity. so let me be perfectly clear. i will not abandon my post or the wonderful people who entrusted me to represent them. >> the indictment comes on the same day that congressman vance mcallister announced he will not seek re-election. the one-term republican who ran a campaign ad discussing his "big family breakfast" every sunday before church, end quote, was recently caught on camera kissing a woman who is now a former aide. mcallister said in a statement today, "i failed those i care most about and let down the people who elected me to represent them. today i'm announcing i will not seek re-election but i will continue to be that voice and will uphold the office to which i was elected to serve for the remainder of my term." the news is the latest in a

string of ethical headaches for gop leaders in the house. earlier this year they of course had to deal with trey radel the florida republican who was caught buying cocaine from a federal law enforcement editor. joining me is politics editor for business insider. welcome. >> thanks for having me. love the stubble, let me say. >> thank you. you're in a club there. so it's a biased statement, but we'll take it. in the problems here obviously this doesn't reflect the entire republican party and yet when you see this indictment and he'll get a chance to defend himself in court and you'll see these other folks dropping out it's not exactly what republicans want going into the mid-terms. >> absolutely. and grimm's seat is really one of the top democratic targets because he is the only republican in the new york city delegation. so this was not a race where they wanted to have this kind of trouble. >> yeah. and you look at this indictment today and on the one hand you've got serious allegations of financial impropriety, hundreds of thousands of dollars of skimming and stealing according to the government, and that's fine.

on the other hand, let's be clear, he is going to go in and make an aggressive argument that they went after him related to one fact, that he was a politician, for campaign finance problems that they did not prove, that they could not stick to him, and now they're going back deeper into his basically business life before getting elected and his lawyers are going to argue that this isn't really a big-time case, this is something where they failed once on the politics and then went in for something else. >> well, they did find this in the course of that investigation, but that investigation is very much still on. and you had a woman earlier this year who was a friend and fund-raiser for him. she pled guilty -- or i'm sorry, she was charged with straw donations to him. the other guy who was in the center of the campaign pled guilty. so there's a lot going on with him. and he may make the argument

that this is a witch hunt. that's what he's doing. but you know, that's not over either. >> when you look over at mcallister, we have a tweet from part of his sort of philosophical view of all of this. lance mcallister tells me "he's got no regrets about staffer kissing scandal. everything happens for a reason." i've never struck completely with that approach to interpreting world events but he has a view here that the republican party's going to welcome because he's going to go away. >> exactly. they're in no danger in his district. it's a staunchly republican area of louisiana. but what i found really, really baffling about his statement. he said he had no regrets. when this aide that he kissed was a close family friend of his and this broke up her marriage. he says it made his marriage stronger. but he caused a divorce here. he at least had a hand in it. and now says he has no regrets. >> yeah. i mean, that's the weird part. and it can be the tawdry part of these scandals. but his public statements here aren't exactly exhibiting that kind of concern, which is a separate question from whether or not this is the standard you want to apply to politicians. the republican party being notoriously inconsistent on that.

and yet part of what we're seeing here is the complexity of the scandal seems to have a great deal of impact for the gop on whether you stay or go. >> absolutely. this case with grimm was so complex that the u.s. attorney in brooklyn actually broke out these two charts to show reporters all the various charges here. there's perjury. there's obstruction. meanwhile, with mcallister we have a simple case of a kiss and some type of cheating and that's much more likely to hit the cable news cycle. we're here discussing it tonight. that's much more salacious and scandalous. and that type of scandal seems to get an immediate response. >> right. and very simple for voters in attack ads. over on the democratic side you've got charlie rangel, a long-serving member of congress here, former chairman of the ways and means committee, who survived a challenge based partly on allegation as round financial improprieties last time. he's facing off against two democrats in the primary here who are still trying to dredge some of that stuff up. >> exactly. and rangel's case is a real illustration of how difficult it

is to make sense of these really complex financial charges. every time i've discuss td with him he just sort of splits hairs and, you know, turns the whole thing into smoke and mirrors. >> right. and he's not under an indictment. so obviously, you do not have that same sort of proof point. although grimm will continue to argue that he should get his day in court, voters should at least give him that much time. hunter walker, thanks for joining us tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> absolutely. coming up, lucia mcbath, mother of jordan davis, tells us what happened when she went to the nra convention. i take prilosec otc each morning for my frequent heartburn. because you can't beat zero heartburn. woo hoo! [ male announcer ] prilosec otc is the number one doctor recommended frequent heartburn medicine for 8 straight years. one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. [ banker ] sydney needed some financial guidance so she could take her dream to the next level. so we talked about her options. her valuable assets were staying. and selling her car wouldn't fly. we helped sydney manage her debt and prioritize her goals,

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. time to take care of business with century link's global broadband network and cloud infrastructure. we constantly evolve to meet your needs every day of the week. before us today stands the goliath of the gun robby. and we are the davids, called to protect and serve those that cannot protect themselves. collectively together, let's aim to keep our communities free from laws that infringe upon our right to live without fear of unnecessary gun violence. moms, stand up. speak out. for the lives that you save very well may be your own.

thank you. [ applause ] >> joining me now is lucia mcbath, a spokesperson for moms demand action for gun sense in america, who demonstrated outside the nra's convention this weekend in minneapolis. her son, jordan davis, was killed by gun violence in november of 2012. thanks again for joining us tonight. >> thank you. it's always a joy. >> well, we spoke before you went down there, and you outlined some of what you were hoping to achieve, including a civic dialogue of sorts here. tell us about how it went. >> well, actually, every town for good sense in america, moms demand action, we were quite pleased with the number of mothers that came from all across the country, the support, overwhelming support that we've received for our efforts, for standing up, speaking out, and really working towards our goals of making this a safe nation for all individuals. so we were quite pleased with our efforts.

>> when you spoke to people heading into the nra convention there, were you able to have any kind of meeting of the minds? >> i don't think we deliberately tried to engage with any of them at the convention. even though we do know that they knew that we were there. they knew that our presence was there. definitely. i think i heard somewhere around the way that, you know, they were talking about us. which is good. which is good. you know, we want them to know that we were there. we want them to know that we're engaged and actively trying to negate some of what they've been trying to say about our organization. some of the misinformation. so we believe that we did everything we set out to do that weekend. >> and i think in politics showing up is always powerful. and you were there in person, as we mentioned. you're also trying to show that your organization, as i understand it, is there in this debate, not going away, not backing down. let me read a little from a

piece you wrote that was up on msnbc.com. you say, "while the gun lobby may have a big head start, i truly believe citizens standing for gun safety will eventually emerge victorious. i see signs of that momentum on these issues is moving in our direction when colorado passed a background check bill last year, when wisconsin passed a law keeping firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers just this month i felt hopeful. when i speak with audiences around the country and hear their stories, i feel hopeful too. what struck me about the way you made your argument there is so often in politics and certainly in journalism we look to tell one story. you're referring to the fact that this fight at the state and local level is many different stories and some sites are moving in your view towards more safety in the law. >> absolutely. and i'm very encouraged by that. i would have to say, though, particularly in my own state of georgia, you know, there's a lot of work to be done.

definitely a lot of work to be done. but in comparison there are a lot of states that are really beginning to recognize that the laws are not working as they believed that they would. they're beginning to see statistics, you know, growing, just large numbers of individuals that have been hurt under these laws, and they're becoming very expansive, which is very, very dangerous. so i think in months to come we'll really begin to see some movement. in years to come. it will take a long time. it will not happen overnight. but we really believe that in the long run that our citizens will really begin to understand the ways that they truly are going to be able to make the change is legislatively, at the polls, and we're going to be able to influence them to do that. >> yeah, i hear you on that. and i know this is an issue you've been leading on from stand your ground to as you mention the expansion of gun rights in georgia but also in those other states as well in your article, which i can

mention for people is up at msnbc.com. for those who want to read it. lucia mcbath, you get tonight's last word. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> you bet. >> b ball free fall. let's play "hardball." >> good evening. i'm chris matthews up in new york and back from china. let me start with the explosive words being attributed to the owner of the l.a. clip percent .he didn't want his girl friend to be publicly associating with african-americans, even while he made his living with a team filled with african-americans. and his girlfriend with was herself a minority. it was all about usefulness, apparently. the players made him money and the girl friend was useful in other ways. if it was him on the tape tape what he had no use for was black people who couldn't play